My NMF kid attends a college that claims to offer a $2,000 scholarship per year for NMFs. But only kids who qualify for need based aid “get” $2,000 – others get $1,000 per year. But because this school does not stack merit, I think no one really ever gets $2,000… they just reduce the grant aid by $2k and show the NMF as $2k, but the COA doesn’t actually change. We qualified for some need based aid her first two years. Now… Year 3, I know we won’t qualify this year, AGI is very high. But now the want to give her only $1,000 for NMF. However, I called and asked about this exact scenario at all of the “$2,000” schools before she accepted… And was told at this school she COULD keep the $2,000 award in a year where she did not qualify for need based aid. Now they have changed their story. AND, the FA person tried to tell me she called NMF and it was their policy… But when I pointed out that didn’t make sense, as the COLLEGE sponsors this scholarship, she backtracked and said she had actually talked to the head of FA at the college, and it was the college policy. I am pretty steamed… She told me multiple times that she would call and then had called NMSC. Then changed her story when I called her on it. Going to talk to the head of FA next after I dig out my notes from the call 2 years ago. But this whole $2000 thing bugs me… And they aren’t the only school that does this.
UMinn has a similar award…$1K/yr up to $2K/yr with demonstrated financial need. They do stack merit scholarships though. Regardless of what we consider our financial need to be, D1 has only ever received the $1K/yr as part of her package. They were generous with the rest of her package though, so the additional $1K would’ve been nice but we never anticipated seeing it and I’m not sure if they would’ve reduced one of her other scholarships to keep the net amount the same or not.
I found her freshman year FA paperwork. Sure enough, her first FA offer from the school (before she decided and then designated them as her NMF school) had a grant of $9,000. Once they added the $2,000 of NMF scholarship in a later version, the grant dropped to $7,000. So… NOBODY ever gets $2,000 off their cost of attendance in spite of their claims of offering a “$2,000 NMF scholarship”. I looked and can find a promise in writing from one of their competitors to give the $2,000/year even if she didn’t get need based aid after the first. But can’t track down anything in writing from this school. I do think they agreed to this as well… but not sure I will have any luck without it in writing. But it still burns me that the FA person lied about talking to the NMSC… and that they pull this sort of “bait and switch” of talking about a $2,000 scholarship that they never actually award.
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In many schools that offer the $2,000 NM scholarships, the money is applied to reduce student loans. So the NM College Scholarship does help for those qualified for financial aid that includes Perkins/Stafford loans. The reduction of $8,000 debt in 4 years is a relief for students from lower income families.
It does raise confusion if the NM scholarships are affected by financial need. By its own name’s sake, it’s a merit reward rather than means of meeting financial need.
If you could list some of those schools, it would be interesting. University of Chicago and Harvey Mudd are two schools that reduce need based grants for sure, not loans.
I know for sure that Carleton and Notre Dame reduce loans with NM or other outside scholarships. Maybe other colleges have a similar policy.
I thought Carleton just gave the $2K scholarship and stacked it. But maybe I am wrong. It is their only merit award, I think.
Baby steps… I just talked to the head of FA. She initially said their contract with NMSC banned them from giving $2K to NMFs without financial need. When I said I had it in writing from another school with the same policy they have that they WOULD honor the $2K scholarship if my kid didn’t qualify for FA one year, and I could produce the email from 2013 where I asked her college to match that agreement, she backed down a bit and said she would talk to the VP at her school who is in charge of the contract. She also admitted that it is impossible to get the $2K scholarship… It was a polite conversation on both sides, and she said she would do what she can to get the extra $1K this year. She also said she would talk to the VP about their contract in general – I think she agrees that this is a deceptive practice, and they should either start giving $2K no matter what OR stop saying they are giving it. So… maybe some change will come about…
Thinking of also writing to NMSC regardless of how this comes out. I personally think they should ban this practice.
Mission accomplished… school has agreed to give $2K/year this year and next year if she doesn’t qualify for FA again next year. A headache… but worth pushing for. So I think the lesson for any parent whose kid is going to one of these schools where you are getting FA, but are not sure you will get it every year, is to ask the school before accepting the offer of admission to agree to stick with the higher NMF amount if your kid has any years without FA, and get it in writing (email is okay, just print it and keep it).